The NBA media can’t be blamed for extensively covering the Lakers and Warriors, big-market teams with the sport’s largest fan bases.
That said, when a player routinely puts up numbers that eluded even Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson — the biggest stat machines in pro basketball history — the NBA media needs to make an exception.
Nikola Jokic hasn’t received his due from the talking heads. When he recorded the first 30/20/20 game last month, neither ESPN nor Fox Sports dedicated a solitary segment to his mind-blowing feat. Instead, they continued to pore over everything Lakers and Warriors.
A similar trend continued Wednesday as ESPN’s “First Take” was more focused on denigrating Russell Westbrook’s late-game mistakes in the 20T loss to the Timberwolves rather than celebrating Jokic’s 61-point triple-double. Thankfully, at least one ESPN analyst isn’t blind to the blatant bias in his network’s NBA coverage.
Jay Williams ripped into his colleagues for not doing right by Jokic.
“If LeBron or Steph dropped 61, 10, and 10 in a game this time of year, we’d shut down the internet & ESPN would talk about it for 2 days straight,” Williams wrote on X. “But when Jokic does it, it’s just another night. Why? Because he doesn’t look the part. He’s not flashy.. not loud.
“But make no mistake — skill for skill, he’s already outpacing Shaq, Hakeem, even Kareem. We’re just afraid to say it. Jokic isn’t just the best player in the world — he’s quietly building one of the greatest legacies we’ve ever seen — & media is still acting like it’s a fluke.”
